No Expectation
by Spot and Punk
Summary: He disappears between street lights like a flip-book animation making his limp more grotesque and monstrous." Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

**No Expectation.**

Blythe reacts straight away to the sound of the doorbell. She isn't expecting any visitors and quirks an eyebrow in silent contemplation.

'Greg! Honey! What are you doing here?!'

'Hi Mom, can I come in?'

'Sure! Come in, come in! Are you okay?' she tenderly takes hold of his elbow and guides him in through the hallway to the living room. 'How is the leg?'

'Fine Mom, I'm okay, really, I uh just need to sit…' House's cane quivers as he rests his full weight on it and sits down gingerly.

Blythe cannot get used to seeing her son this way. She can see how the pain has aged her boy beyond his years. She watches him try to get comfortable on the couch and likens him to one of her friends, riddled with arthritis, lonely, miserable, old.

'Greg what are you doing here?' she repeats in the hope of solving the mystery he has presented. She scans her memory looking for the last time her errant son made the three-hundred mile trip to just drop by unexpected.

'I uh… I guess uh…'

She can't bear the hesitancy and tries to put him out of his misery.

'Well, it doesn't matter,' she smiles and pats his good leg, 'I'm just so happy to see you!' rising to stand she continues in her effort to break the awkward silence. 'Wait till your father gets home, he'll be so happy…'

While she rambles off into the kitchen, House's thoughts flicker like a lightening flash back to the days when those words would have had quite a different meaning.

He gazes around his parents' living room and balks at the certificates and photos of his younger self dotted about the walls. His movements are jerky as though his gross motor skills are being controlled by the pain burning up his thigh.

He is nervous and doesn't know why he has come.

He forces himself to take a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. He has never lived here and notes at once the strangeness of recognising all his parents' stuff in this unfamiliar shell. It's almost like being in some kind of museum replica of his childhood.

He thinks back to the times they had moved whilst he was growing up. One shell to the next, never really stopping long enough to put down any firm roots.

He hears his mom pottering about in the kitchen and is thrown back to being ten years old and coming home with his first black eye. She had lifted him onto the kitchen bench and she'd tended his eye, icing it and dabbing arnica to prevent the bruise from showing too badly. She hadn't asked him how he had come by it. Instead she had waited for him to tell his story.

That was her way. She always waited for him to explain, she never asked why. All through his teenage years and the trouble he'd had with the police, the drugs, the underage drinking. She'd just tended him and waited for him to tell her what happened. He swears that's why he can't lie to her. There's no expectation of deceit. Whatever he tells her, he knows she will wait for him to get it straight in his head first, to work out the kinks in his reasoning, to allow for faulty teenage logic swayed too easily by testosterone.

Maybe that's why he is here now.

His mother walks back in to the living room and he catches a glimpse of the old lady she is becoming. She staggers just slightly as though the tray is too heavy and too precariously laden. He wishes he could jump up and take it from her but knows he still hasn't worked out a way to carry stuff like that without having to stand still, stranded like some kind of beached whale. The old leading the lame or some such platitude.

'You want a sandwich honey? I've got ham, cheese, uh, there's more in the kitchen if you want?' She trails off as she watches her son snaffling down a sandwich like he hasn't eaten in a month. 'If you're hungry I can make something else? We don't normally eat until later but…'

'No, this is great Mom, really. I guess I'm hungry after the flight.' He manages to force out round the sides of his mouth.

She strokes the back of his head and falls in to the blue depths of his eyes like only a mother can. She sees nothing but him. She breathes in deeply to try to get a grip on his unique scent and listens for the tiny satisfied noises she knows he will make as he eats. All this is subconscious and has been repeated ad infinitum through the years, through the decades.

His mind too is blank. The near constant whirring of his daily life switches to an older model, one he had forgotten. It's safe here, no expectations.

A knocking at the door wakens mother and son from their own private reveries. Blythe stands to answer and smiles at the man her baby became as she goes.

House finishes off the last sandwich on the plate and swallows down the glass of milk on the tray. He reaches for the cookies and doesn't think too long about the fact that a full grown man can feel this content, this happy just for being here with his mother, the sandwiches, the milk and the cookies.

Out in the hallway he can hear his mother mumbling a question and being answered by an unfamiliar voice. The voice is somewhat shrill and has that sing-song quality that some women of a certain age seem to have. He imagines how its owner must look; he's sure there will be some outrageous jewellery around her neck and that she'll weigh just a bit too much too be healthy.

The voices draw closer and he prepares to be presented to the stranger who seems to know his mother so well. He swallows down the last of the cookie he had been eating and turns expectantly to the door. He's nervous again but knows it's because of that awkward moment when the stranger meets the limp and the cane. He's not quite got used to that; can't yet brush it off as someone else's problem.

'So Mary, this is my son, Greg. Greg, this is my friend Mary, from my painting class.'

'Oh, so this is him? Oh, your mother has told me all about you! Let me look at you, so handsome…'

House is caught somewhere between sitting and standing and knows he is leaning too far over to escape looking pathetic. Mary runs her hands down his arms and guides him back to sitting without him having to reveal his inadequacy. His mom must already have told her then.

Grateful to this slightly crazy looking lady, House doesn't try to hide his intense examination of her. She's about his mother's age, seventy-five or thereabouts, hair is grey with a streak of purple in a kooky attempt at 'arty', a plump, pink, happy face and the kind of smoky brown eyes that seem to look into your soul when you meet their gaze.

Which they do.

House immediately casts his own eyes down in an effort to avoid the awkwardness he feels under Mary's equally intense scrutiny of him.

He's nearing forty and he has come home. He doesn't know why. He feels deflated, crushed like a cardboard box full of plastic bottles waiting to be recycled. He is hurting inside his chest and inside his damn leg. His shoulder too is aching and his back has yet to get used to his new version of mobility.

All this he knows Mary can see without a single spoken word.

In a second she swishes a flowery sleeve as though to signal an end to the mutual examination and announces her afternoon plan.

'So, I've come to take your lovely mother to the city art gallery. There's this new exhibition and we've been planning to go for a long while haven't we Blythe? You wanna join us sweetie?'

He can't remember the last time anyone had called him sweetie but he takes the bait and is grateful for the chance to snap out of this strange funk he seems to be in.

'Uh, no, thank you. I uh, don't-'

'Oh Mary, Greg's had a long trip haven't you honey?' Blythe comes to her son's rescue; almost too quickly.

'Thanks anyway, I think I'll uh just wait here, Mom, if that's okay?' He wants her reassurance, he wants her to say that it's okay to just sit and think; there are no expectations.

'Oh sure, I understand, don't worry,' God he can't bare the pity he can almost hear creeping into her voice. 'Your father will be home around five. You just… well, make yourself at home honey, take it easy.' She kisses him on the cheek and steals one last stroke of his hair.

'How long are you in town for Greg? I hope I get to meet again before you leave?' Mary asks whilst she gathers her things.

'I uh, a few days I guess.'

'Well okay then, good to meet you.' Mary takes his hand and clasps it tightly between both of her own. She stares into his soul for one last time then she and his mother leave the house.

Grateful for the peace and silence, House relaxes back into the sofa and closes his eyes. Swallowing down a bolt of pain, his mind tries to drift away. Somewhere in his head is a germ of a thought tapping at his subconscious; why would his mother leave so soon after he had arrived?

_Okay, another story with a mind of its own that demands the present tense (I swear, it's a conspiracy). Not too sure where it's going other than House has come for a bit of mother-healing and can't admit it to himself. Maybe a bit of Stacy angst and set around the time 'Heap of House' leaves off__. Story also seems to have added a mystery as to where Blythe is really going – is there enough of a hint of that? Whadda ya think?_


	2. Chapter 2

**NB: My poor old beta is having a troublesome real life at the moment so I'm flying without wings here. Please forgive any ghastly errors or horrifying turns of phrase. Let me know if I've written something awful (or even better, if I've written something good!).**

**You have been warned... **

Chapter 2

He awakens suddenly and there are fat tears rolling down his face. He knows he was woken by the sound of someone groaning seemingly in pain. Now he's awake, he realises that the sound must have come from him.

His leg is agony. There are few words to describe what he faces every morning; this one is no different. He doesn't register the strange surroundings of his parents' spare room instead preferring to grab his leg as though it may make a break for the border if he doesn't hold onto it for dear life.

He rocks back and forth trying to breath through the pain whilst he waits for the Vicodin he's just palmed to kick in. As he hisses in pain and blows out a breath that smacks of despair, the door to his room creeps open.

Blythe had been thrown back to the kind of sleep only a new mother can know. She had passed through the night hours fitfully, waking at the slightest sound and never truly resting. She had watched the numbers on the alarm clock flick through from the very late to the very early and her ears had pricked at every little sound that had made its way down the hall.

The numbers on the alarm clock hit the time of the morning when it isn't worth trying to get back to sleep and she can hear the unmistakable rumble of her grown son in pain. Unable to simply let him be, she makes her way cautiously from her room to the spare.

She has her ear to the door and can hear Greg groaning in his sleep. She has heard it before when he had been sick as a teen, voice barely able to maintain its newer lower timbre. It does now what it did then, pitching somewhere tight and between plains. She pushes open the door to find him rocking on the edge of the mattress.

'Mom…'

'Honey, what can I do?'

'I'm ok… just… give me a minute…'

She is embarrassed because she's wearing only her dressing gown and nightdress. She's embarrassed because he's wearing only his boxers and she has walked in on a private moment. This adjustment from woman with grown-up child to mother again is not an easy one to make; especially when she doesn't know what has brought him here, what had made him spend the night.

He is skinnier than she remembered him being. When he had last lived under her roof, he'd been on the lacrosse team at high school. He'd been broad-shouldered and all muscle. There hadn't been an ounce of fat on him and he had towered above her. Now he leans instead.

She saunters downstairs to the kitchen and she is lost in thought. She has plans for the day and realises she can't pull the 'exhibition' excuse again. _What is he doing here?_ She is equal parts blissfully happy to have him home - at _her _home - and annoyed at her routine being disrupted.

It had all been going so well.

John hadn't picked up a thing.

She pours out a second cup of coffee as House limps into the kitchen in yesterday's clothes and hoists himself onto the stool; all stubble and bed-head. John hasn't woken yet and he doesn't need to. The birds are only just beginning their morning call and the spring sun is only now casting a pink glow across the magnolia tree in the garden.

'Here honey, have some coffee.'

'Thanks Mom… I uh-'

'You don't have to explain Greg. You can stay as long as you need. You were asleep last night before your father got home. I've spoken to him and it's okay really.'

He sips at his steaming mug and tries to find some words to account for why he is putting them both through this weirdness.

He hurts and he doesn't know where to turn.

He needs someone who won't judge him; someone who doesn't expect him to answer back with a witty retort or a crippling blow.

A tiny part of him begins to think he might need someone in his corner. Someone with no expectations.

'Is it always that bad?' Only his mother could ask him that and expect to hear an honest reply.

'Yeah, sometimes it's worse… sometimes it's better.'

'Can't your doctor give you-'

'No, Mom, there's nothing- the Vicodin helps.' He had expected his answer to be more truthful but can't help trying to make his situation sound just a little more hopeful.

The strange conversation they're trying not to have about the scene in the spare room is disrupted by the unmistakable sound of his father stomping downstairs. They both stare down into their drinks and bury the start of what could have been a very healthy discussion, instead preferring to revert back to the pretence of breakfast ala the house of Houses.

Granola, toast, orange juice and coffee.

Platitudes and no expectations.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

He has his wallet, his Vicodin and the clothes he is wearing. When he had boarded the plain back in Newark, he hadn't thought much beyond an intense need _not_ be in Princeton.

He hadn't expected to find himself so far from home.

He knows he is being pathetic.

He paws at his face as he stares hard at himself in the mirror. He looks terrible and he doesn't care very much about that. His stubble is getting out of control and the black shadows under his eyes are darkening. The pallor of his skin is grey and when he pinches it, it doesn't spring back like it used to. He's looking at the face of an old man and feels it's almost cruel to be surrounded in this house by images of himself before.

He finishes brushing his teeth with the spare one his mother keeps and peels off his clothes ready for the shower. He should make some sort of an effort.

Thinking back to that hideous moment when his mother had found him in the spare room, he wishes he had put a bit of thought into throwing some clean boxers and his pjs into his backpack. He had seen her looking at his scar.

He'd almost grown used to it now. Almost.

The water splashing over his face and body as he showers serves its purpose. He feels refreshed and clean. The gnarly, unfathomable knot of his thigh muscle even loosens its stranglehold. He doesn't want to turn off the water just yet. He knows when he does, he'll be cold and the thigh will tense up, cramp, probably spasm seeing the bitch of a mood it's in today.

House hears his parent's argument spill out of their bedroom. He wants to hear what they are rowing about but thinks he already knows. Shutting off the shower, it takes a minute for them to register the lack of sound-screen and the voices go quiet.

He dries himself as quickly as he can, all the while feeling the goose-bumps prickle out all over his body. He rubs at his skin with the towel in an effort to warm himself and notes the edge of panic creeping down his throat and into his chest. His shoulders are the first things to tense up, followed closely by the muscle groups leading down to his leg.

He reaches out to the towel rail for support but mis-judges the distance and his hand flails in mid-air before his precarious balance forces him to crash shoulder first into the wall. Grateful for the break in what would have been a pretty bad fall, his heart threatens to break the free of his rib cage it's beating so hard. House slumps down to sit on the floor and takes a minute to try to slow it down.

Breathing like a frightened rabbit, he notes the tell-tale signs of a full-scale spasm building unchecked. There's a slight tremor radiating up from his knee and his leg is unbearably cold. He knows if he doesn't get a handle on this that he won't be able to see it out on his own.

'Breathe, come on, breathe dammit…' Taking breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, the bathroom starts to flex and stretch around him.

He rubs furiously at his thigh in a valiant attempt to relax the rigid muscles.

'Don't do this now!' he pleads quietly. He can't bare the idea of his father seeing him like this and knows the inevitable shout for the help he needs is just seconds away.

He can't get up off the floor.

He can't get up off the floor and the leg has begun to twitch.

The twitching is tightening already over-extended muscles and the pain this heaps on top of the burning he can already feel begins to overwhelm him.

He can't get up off the floor.

Tears start to leak out from his eyes and sweat starts to trickle out from the pores in his skin.

He is in agony. He is freezing. He has only the towel around his waist to conceal his modesty.

He can't get up. He feels helpless and completely pathetic, useless.

'Shit!' his breath comes out panting now and he knows what he must do.

'Dad?!' he wonders if the weakness in his voice has anything to do with the fact that he deeply, deeply doesn't want this.

He tries to lift himself once more and the shaking running up through his arms confirms the futility of even trying.

'DAD?!' he calls out again, shouting this time. He keeps kneading at the hard, scarred skin on his thigh.

Time seems to warp, speeding up and slowing down as he hears his father's footsteps coming up the hall.

Unbelievable relief sweeps away some of the panic he feels when the bathroom door opens and his father steps into the room. House looks up at him and somewhere he is reminded of the days when his Dad could do no wrong, was master of the universe.

Switching back to reality, House drops his head in shame as he admits his predicament with a sweep of his hand.

'Jesus, son! What happened? 'John drops to his knees and puts a hand on his son's naked, shivering back. His eyes fall to the leg and he notes the way House's muscles are jerking and contracting. 'What the hell?!'

'Spasm… ugh…happens sometimes…ah…' House can barely force out the words between gasps of pain.

'Blythe! Blythe get in here!' House junior hears the panic and urgency in House senior's voice.

John is paralysed by revulsion and shock. He hadn't let himself see his son's disability. He'd seen his corp. buddies in the hospital after the war, watched them claw back some kind of a life for themselves. Those guys had been soldiers, heroes. Now, he was faced with the same weakness and shame and fear vying for position on his son's craggy face right here in his bathroom.

'I can't…get…UP!' the last word shoots through a blast of escalating pain making House sound bitchier than the frantic he'd gone for.

John feels helpless and it isn't until Blythe runs into the bathroom that he snaps into action.

'Get him up, John, please!' she can't stand the sight before her.

Before he can think about it House reaches for his father's arm. He grabs it and through some Herculean determination, manages to pull himself up on one leg as the other continues its morbid dance.

He stands shaking, completely at the mercy of his father while he grips the towel round his waist with his free hand.

'Honey, what can we do?' Blythe asks.

'V-Vicodin.' is all he can pant out. He prays for the ground to swallow him up, for this misery to end.

'Okay, can you walk? Need your cane?' she takes control of the situation and feels like thumping her husband.

'Give me your hand son.' John manages as he feels House start to lose his balance once again.

The House men wobble and stagger out of the bathroom and down the hall. House can see the bottle of pills on the dresser through the open door. The orange glow of the bottle calls to him and urges him forward.

Three steps, two steps, one step. Hand on bottle like a bulimic in a doughnut store. Shake two out. Swallow, wait.

Expectation.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

House lies where he dropped just an hour earlier. His arm is draped across his eyes to block out the bright sun shining through the blinds. His mother had sat with him and rubbed his back until the Vicodin had kicked in and the spasm had eased just as she had when he was eight and he had broken his arm. When his eyes had started to droop, exhausted by pain, tension and fear, she had covered him with the comforter and left him to snooze.

He looks out of the window and can't lift the weight of embarrassment settling across his chest. He'd always tried so hard to live up to his father's expectations and he'd never quite met them. Growing up, he had been enthralled by stories of the heroes of war, men his father described as having near-inhuman bravery.

House thinks the sound of the front door closing means his father has left the house. He thinks it's probably safe to venture out of this room so he pulls on his jeans and T-shirt for the second time that day.

Blythe hears the thunk-tap-swish of her son leaning on both cane and wall as he makes his way down to the living room. She stands hesitantly not really knowing what to expect.

'Hey sweetheart, how are you feeling now?' she tries, not able to read the expression on his face.

He lowers himself onto the sofa and leans forward, chin resting on cane. 'I'm not sick Mom, this is… this is pretty much how it goes these days.' He doesn't think he is ready to lay his pain bare for _anyone_ to see.

'I uh, I didn't know it was this bad honey…' she trails off when she realises what a stupid, useless thing that was to say.

The house is quiet now, it seems to breathe easily.

House can smell coffee brewing in the kitchen and his mouth starts to water. He wants a distraction so he's glad, relieved, when Blythe suddenly gets up offering him a cup.

While she is in the kitchen, he notices how neat and tidy everything is. Nothing is out of place and he suspects that this is borne out of necessity. All through his childhood, the transfers had come just about every two years. Blythe was a world-class expert at packing up and moving on.

He feels bruised, exhausted, like a soggy rag, wrung out and thrown away.

He hears her coming back into the room, cups clinking against each other on the tray.

'So, I have to go out today. Mary will be by in about a half hour. What are your plans honey?' she asks in the gentlest tone she can. She wants to coax the reason for his visit from him and thinks if she surprises him, he'll be forced into an answer.

'I uh, I…' God, he hates that he can't just say a simple sentence without stuttering anymore. '…I guess I'm gonna stay another night, if that's okay? I don't want to get in the way.'

'Sure honey, I just want you to feel at home and-' she stops talking as she watches him wipe a tear from the end of his nose. 'Greg? Honey?'

He sniffs, wipes at his eyes and is grateful for his mother's quick arms around his body.

Blythe hugs her son as tightly as she can in the belief that if she loves him enough she can stop the pain. She can feel his rib-cage expanding and contracting frantically as unabashed sobs rain down on her shoulder. She pulls him tighter and strokes the back of his head. His body heats up as his emotions get the better of him and his breath hitches and gasps.

This was not what she had expected. He had been so distant. It was so seldom that he even called let alone visited. Yet, here he was.

She lets him get all the tears out and waits to feel his breathing slow down and even out. She doesn't know how to get past this outburst of emotion and wonders if he does .

Once she's sure that he isn't going to start crying all over again, she moves him away from her shoulder so she can see his face, look into his eyes.

'Greg?'

A flash of something crosses his face and makes his eyes close. She braces herself for more tears and wonders again what has happened to her extraordinary son. After a few seconds, he drops his head and his shoulders start to shake. A strange noise escapes through his nose and she lifts his chin. She cannot work out what he is doing.

'Greg?' She asks again. She dearly hopes he isn't about to have some sort of seizure. 'Greg honey? Please, look at me.'

Suddenly, he smiles, one of those full, bright, infectious smiles that lights up his face.

'Greg?!'

'It's okay Mom… I just uh…' House smiles, shrugs, lost for words.

She figures it out. Her boy is laughing. From the sublime to the ridiculous, he never was one to do things by halves. She hits him on the shoulder, the relief she feels is incredible. All the worry, anxiety, the fear and stress of the last few years comes rushing to the fore and it's all she can do to not break down in tears herself.

Her boy is laughing.

'Jesus Greg, I was worried!'

'I'm sorry, I just… it hurts… I'm crying on my Mom's shoulder. I don't know why I'm here… I haven't got any spare clothes… haven't brought my toothbrush…'

Blythe doesn't know what to say but she feels laughter bubbling up from the very depths of her belly and she knows she won't be able to stop it either.

'Hey stop laughing!'

'My God, Greg! I thought you were going to have a seizure! I was about to call the paramedics!' She is laughing now and it feels good. She can't remember the last time she had been able to laugh like this. Between John and Greg, she had lived her life expecting the worst whenever the phone rang. She had been worried, every single day. To think that her only son had been that close to death hadn't been something she could just dismiss and move on from.

Funny then that she can't stop laughing now.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Blythe thinks back to Greg when he was three. Her face creases into a smile as she recalls the insane conversations they had. All she could do was attempt to follow the lurching shifts in her son's attentions as he switched subject minute by minute. Greg would start talking about bananas only to swing wildly to the merits of being an octopus and having eight arms. He would begin his worldly observations the second he woke in the morning and hardly stopped for breath until his head hit the pillow at night. He stuttered as a child and she always thought it was because his brain was running too fast for his mouth.

She watches him now as he snoozes on the sofa. He is slumped awkwardly in the corner with arms crossed defensively across his chest. His head lolls almost perversely to the right and the expression on his face is a tight grimace that shouts 'go away'.

The doorbell rings and she hurries to answer it. She knows who will be on the other side of the door.

She turns the handle and simultaneously puts her finger to her lips in the hope of preventing her visitor from her normal shrieked greeting.

'Mary hi!' Blythe whispers as she kisses her friend on the cheek.

'Hey, what's going on?' Mary whispers conspiratorially in reply.

Blythe responds by guiding Mary into their living room and pointing to her sleeping son. Mary nods an acknowledgment and takes a minute to study Blythe's boy with impunity. She can see the pain he is in, she knows the story.

'Has he said anything yet?'

'I know why he's here. He knows too but he isn't saying. You want some coffee? Want to come sit out on the porch?'

Blythe busies herself in the kitchen making a fresh pot of coffee and digging out some cookies. Once she has cups, saucers, coffee pot and milk jug arranged on the tray, she gestures to Mary to follow her to the table and chairs outside.

'He used to talk to me, all the time. He wore me out when he was small, he had so much energy but he was bright, bright as a button. I don't know when he stopped telling me what was going on in his life.'

Mary watches her friend through the steam puffing out from the top of her coffee cup. It's a bright, cold morning and she's glad for the warmth diffusing through her body as she drinks.

'He's so different now. He used to stutter, as a kid. You could hear him pausing, breathing over the stuck sound. I think it's come back now…'

Blythe drifts off again and Mary isn't sure what to say. She doesn't know this side of Blythe, the mother. She knew her friend had a son, knew the basics but they had only known each other for the last fifteen years, she hadn't seen the nose wiping, the nappy changing, the hand-holding.

'So a boy needs his mother?' Mary tries to bring her back to the now.

'Simple isn't it? He nearly died you know. I mean, his heart stopped beating.' Blythe can't stop herself thinking back to the phone-calls between Stacy and her. She had felt so helpless and utterly desperate. The prospect of losing her only child had been a fate too cruel to comprehend. She had spent her married life permanently on edge thinking that John would go down in flames over some far-away ocean. When he was on tours of duty, every knock at the door had felt like a death knell. To get past that only to nearly lose her son years after she had her husband back safe and in retirement had been like a kick in the gut from a rabid donkey.

He hadn't been the same since. Every time she had called, he either hadn't answered or he'd found some excuse not to talk to her. Stacy had kept her up to date, until he'd left.

The day ticks by as Blythe and Mary sit in silent companionship on the porch. They watch the edges of the shade sweep over the garden drying out the dew as it goes. House sleeps on in the living room and Blythe is reminded of the days he would spend sleeping it off after a gig or party. Pale faced and moody she only had to look in his eyes to tell whether he had been drinking or getting high. She'd always known. He'd been defensive, absent, silent on those days.

As the clock reaches midday, Blythe and Mary are startled by a groan coming from inside the house. The women look at each other; Mary in confusion and Blythe in panic. They rush inside to find House awake and trying to get up from the couch.

'Greg!' Blythe shouts as she rushes over to help him.

She panics when she thinks there's going to be a repeat of the morning's bathroom horror. She isn't as strong as she used to be and knows she won't be able to pick him if he falls.

House staggers as he gets the balance right between cane and leg. 'Mom, hey. I was just coming to find you.'

'Are you okay honey?'

House is caught in headlights and feels nothing but blinding embarrassment. He had hoped his mother hadn't heard the groan.

He hasn't got it in him to make light of it and hadn't realised his mother's friend, Margaret, Mavis or whatever her name was, is visiting.

'I'm fine! I am hungry though.' nothing but lightness, anything to steer clear of the obvious.

'Well, I have left-overs in the fridge and you can help yourself, will you be okay honey?' Blythe feels cruel leaving him to it when he has come all this way, but today is too important. She worries that when she comes back he'll be in a heap at the bottom of the stairs or knocked out after a fall. 'Do you need me to stay? I can if…'

'No, n…n…no I'll be fine. You go on I'll be fine.' If he repeats it enough the fear awoken by the morning will return to the box in the back of his mind.

He has never felt this way. He is scared when he showers in case he slips. He's scared walking down the street in case he can't get by and lands on his ass. Now his mother thinks he is some pathetic, sorry cripple who can't even form a sentence without stuttering and can't take a shower without calling for his father. Loser.

Likewise, Blythe desperately wants to stay. She wants to protect her boy but she also doesn't want to face what she knows is waiting for her at the end of the car ride.

Mary gives her a gentle nudge and reminds her of their 'appointment'.

Reluctantly and resigned, like a child left in day-care, House watches his mother and Mary leaving. He hears them close the car doors and reverse out of the drive. When he can't hear the car engine anymore, he sits back down on the sofa. He doesn't have the energy, or the guts, to move. The silence consumes him and he lets his mind wonder. Did she say where she was going?


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Mary switches the engine off. It clicks and hisses, expressing its dissatisfaction. She turns to Blythe and waits for some sort of indicator of readiness. Blythe stares resolutely out of the passenger side window without saying a word.

The minutes go by and still no one utters a single syllable.

When fifteen minutes have passed, Blythe releases a breath she has been holding since she left House alone. She turns her head to Mary and a small, strange smirk, all tension and nerves, crosses her face.

'Well then… here we are.'

'Yep, here we are. Are you ready?' Mary prompts Blythe else they stay here in the car, all day.

'I think I'm… No.'

'No?'

'No. Can we uh, go back home?' Blythe stares forward, she can't face her friend. They had driven such a long way and she can't do it. Not today. Not when Greg is in such bad shape.

'Really? You don't want to just see..?'

'I have to go home. Greg needs me. Please Mary, I need to go back. Another day, I'll do it another day.'

Mary can't argue with faultless logic and recognises a mother in action. She turns the engine on once again, flicks the indicator left and checks her mirror.

Pulling away from the high street, Mary doesn't dare to speak. She doesn't know what to say and she doesn't want to force her friend. She turns on the stereo and the last CD she was listening to pours out its mournful harmony.

'I love Joni Mitchell.' Blythe lets her words hang in the air apropos of nothing.

'Me too.'

They drive along in companionable silence watching suburban streets give way to expanses of industrial waste land. Heading back onto the highway, Mary thinks of all the things she could have done this morning.

'I think he knows…about me finding him.' Now she has said it aloud her heart speeds up in anticipation of Mary's reaction.

'Wait, you think _Michael _knows you've tracked him down?'

'Yes. There was a call on Monday. When I answered, they just hung up. I saw a car outside the house. I've seen it a few times.'

'God, Blythe, what are you going to do?' Mary pulls the car over and parks up, wanting to give Blythe her full attention.

'I thought he was dead, it was such a long time ago. Then when I saw him that day… he didn't recognise me. I just… can't do that to John. He has no idea about Greg. I don't think I can take this any further. It wouldn't be right. It's been forty years.' Blythe feels her resolve strengthening with every word that she forms.

'Really? You wanted this so badly. You said that you needed to know what had happened to him, to see how Greg... Now you just want to forget the whole idea?'

'Yes. I do, I just want to go home to Greg, to John.'

'This could be the last time you ever get to see this through.' Mary knows her words are redundant. Blythe has made up her mind. Once that happened, there was no changing it back.

'I know it.'

She thinks she's had a lucky escape. What had she been thinking? She had almost split her whole world in two for the sake of a puzzle. It was unfair of her to think that Michael could provide the missing piece. It wasn't his life after all, it was hers.

It was easier this way, no expectation.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Turning the tap off, House watches the stray drops of water dribble down the side of the glass. He takes a lazy gulp of his drink hurting his throat when he swallows too much at once. He feels the solid lump of liquid making its way down through his chest, leaving a cool trail in its wake and almost hears it landing in his belly like a fat drop of mercury.

He hobbles back into the living room and makes his way to the piano under the stairs. His hand grazes the smooth, black top lovingly. He had grown up with this piano, served his time with this piano. An old, faithful friend ready and waiting for him always, wherever they were in the world.

He sits down on the bench and lets his fingers dribble over the keys; first white striking their argument over the hammers, then the more melodious and companionable black. Soon enough, a tune starts to leak out and House goes with it, letting his fingers dictate the pace, the rhythm until he recognises what it is.

He favoured anything by Van Morrison for warm-ups. The swooping scales and orchestral strings lent themselves well to a full finger work-out and House always felt ready to take on anything after that.

Willingly lost at sea, House plays song after song after song, from Van to Elgar to some Robert Johnson ditty and he feels at peace. His leg hardly registers and seems to respect his need to play.

Like the old song, the music goes round and round until House feels consumed by the notes flowing though his fingers, pounding out from the strings. He hasn't played like this for a long time.

When his father walks up the path to the front door, he thinks Blythe might have taken on a new student and he's impressed. He puts his key in the door and struggles just a little to turn it, stiff as it is in the lock. Some boogie-woogie piece he doesn't know pours out into the hallway and for a minute, John just stands and listens.

Something nags at him, some sort of recognition, some memory but he can't pin it down.

He picks up the grocery bags and heads into the lounge, intending to pass straight through to the kitchen without disturbing the lesson.

When he sees his son sitting with eyes closed and shoulders hunched at the piano he is taken aback but stops to listen, to watch. House seems relaxed despite his fingers' busy dance across the keys. His face is smooth and there is even a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

House feels a shiver tickle across his shoulders which breaks the flow of the dominant seventh arpeggio he is playing and ends his practice. He's not sure how long he has been playing for but it's dark outside and he feels that familiar rumble in his stomach telling him it's time to eat. He sits still and quiet listening to the strings of the piano reverberate and hum their dying breaths.

'That was pretty good son.'

House is jolted back to the here and now by the sound of his father's gravely voice.

'Dad… when-'

'Just a moment ago, I didn't want to disturb you.'

'Oh, uh, Mom home?' House feels exposed, on alert.

'No. Just me. You hungry?'

House nods in response to his father's question and takes a minute to get up from the bench. His cane is somewhere in the kitchen and his leg feels like it's about to pay him back for having to behave itself for so long.

He summons up the momentum he will need to take his first step and rises, grateful to the proximity of the wall to help him and grateful too for the fact that his father isn't in the room to watch him make his pitiful way. By the time he reaches the kitchen, he has found a precarious balance that allows him to hobble almost gracefully.

'You want some soup Greg? I don't know where your mother has got to.'

'She went out, this morning, with Madeline… Muriel… Maggie- yeah, soup would be good.'

House sits down at the table and watches his father move around the kitchen like a stranger in his own home. He opens cupboards and drawers never finding what he's looking for until the last try. House picks at the skin around his thumb nail and watches fascinated as the barest drop of blood makes its way to the surface. Sucking it away, he is surprised by the sudden appearance of two bowls of soup, two spoons and a plateful of bread in front of him.

'So son, that was pretty rough this morning huh?'

Startled by what he sees as a flash attack, House responds cautiously, 'It's uh, okay now.' He feels heat and redness start to break out across his cheeks like a five year old who has wet the bed. He doesn't like how this is going.

'Now look son, I'm gonna give you some advice you probably don't wanna hear.'

'Of course you are…' House mumbles snippily, almost inaudibly. His hackles are up and he's on edge, senses on fire.

'You gotta just… get on son.' The words sound _almost_ right as they leave John's mouth.

'What exactly are you saying Dad?' House's voice sounds a low warning.

'You know son, I see you with that, that _cane _and all I can think about is…'

'That I need to suck it up? Get over myself? That I need, what? Exactly what?!' House stands up, grabs his cane and starts to pace around the table, anger burning across his face.

'No, no I just mean… I had to pick you up for Chrissakes! Greg! No, don't you _limp_ out of this room! I'm talking to you!' John follows his son out into the living room, hating every minute of this confrontation he didn't want.

'Wait, like some kind of fatherly advice?' Sarcasm drips off his tongue as he continues, 'Nice Dad, real nice. Got anything you wanna add to that?'

John is staggered at how fast the conversation and potentially pleasant dinner has turned about. He's thrown back to when House was a teenager and hormones controlled what could and could not be spoken about. He can't help the cruel jibes and can't stop them escaping from his mouth.

'You know what your problem is Greg?' shouting now, John continues, 'You want to take a look down at the Vet's hospital. There's real suffering. Men who've fought in wars, men with no legs – how do you like that Greg?!'

'Right, I'm so glad we had this little talk! What is _your _problem _Dad_? Huh?' House walks over to face his father and squares up to him. Looking him straight in the eye, he thinks of all the bones in his father's face and how he could easily break them one by one.

Facing off, neither man can stand down and violent thoughts and images swarm through House's mind. He feels the tightness in his jaw telling him his teeth are grinding against each other. Blood pounds through the veins in his head, fight or flight playing out over and over in his mind.

Quietly, huskily, House murmurs. 'What? Don't like what you see? Don't like looking at your cripple son? I never was tough enough was I _Dad_? You know what? You can take your war hero crap and you can piss all over it. Life is a piece of shit. That what you wanna hear? Huh? Life is a piece of shit? I hate life? I need you? That make you feel better?'

He wants his father to do something, say something but none of his words, as mean as he can make them, are pushing the right button. Yet.

'No son, that isn't what I meant. I wanted-'

'Save it!'

Bruised pride, a battered ego and all manner of other psychological clichés force House up to the front door. He had wanted a reaction, wanted _something _from his Dad.

Sheer anger and a fierce sense of getting the hell away force him out of the door and onto the street.

He hears his father shouting, screaming his name after him but he walks on blinkered by insult, fuming and raging inside.

Soon enough, he stumbles upon the bus stop he had used just yesterday. He can't bear to sit and instead paces the one, two steps under the shelter. Back and forth, back and forth; it was always the same, too many expectations.

Even he is surprised though at the speed of the whole thing.

He had really lost it with his father and he wasn't dumb enough _not_ to wonder what twisted version of cause and effect had been playing with him.

In all honesty, it was the first time since Stacy had left that he'd felt any real emotion.

Now here, in this house where his parents lived a peaceable existence he had laughed uncontrollably, screamed uncontrollably, felt uncontrollable.

Like Ahab and his whale he felt the full force of everything he had lost bubbling up through his body and for the second time in what had been one of the longest days of his life, House felt the prickle of tears behind his eyes.

Quickly sniffing the tears back where they belonged, he realised then why he had come home.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 9

When Mary's car pulls back into recognisable territory two hours later she has almost forgiven Blythe. Truthfully, she thinks she is more disappointed that this secretive, exciting mission they've been on for the last few months is over. Still, Blythe seems to know what she's doing. Perhaps Greg turning up now had been some sort of divine intervention.

Mary doesn't like driving in the dark, she feels afraid, on edge as if some mad axe man might come stumbling into the road at any second. Now that she is nearing her dotage, her vulnerability bothers her even more. She sits bolt upright in her seat, as close to the steering wheel as she can get. Squinting over the top, she won't take her eyes off the road for even a second.

Up ahead sitting just far enough away from a street light to be almost invisible, Mary spots a sorry-looking man looking pretty rough and tries to weigh up his axe-murdering potential. He sits at the bus stop, with head dipped and hair sticking up all kinds of which way giving her the impression that nobody much cares for him; least of all himself. He doesn't look up when she passes and she decides he is probably just some harmless bum.

For some reason though, he sticks in her mind long after she has driven past him. He seems to call to her soul and she can't shake the sadness he seemed to emit like a lighthouse beacon shouting its silent warning to no one, to everyone.

Blythe slumbers in the passenger seat oblivious to Mary's encounter.

Checking her rear-view mirror, Mary sees the bright, glaring lights of a bus and she wonders if the strange man filling her thoughts is on it.

The bus draws closer in the mirror until she realises that she has slowed down. Giving in to the seemingly pre-determined, she pulls up to the curb with the intention of checking out the passengers and looking for some sort of clue as to why fate seems to think this would matter.

As the bus overtakes her cranky old Corvette, Mary examines each flickering person and dismisses each one as they pass.

Something is nagging at her subconscious and she curses her ailing faculties for letting her down like this. She makes a hasty decision to turn back hoping that whatever is bugging her will reveal itself.

She is glad she did.

Once she has pulled out to the other side of the street, there hobbling toward her is the strange man. Now she is closer, she can make more of him out. He disappears between street lights like a flip-book animation making his limp more grotesque and monstrous. Closer still and she realises exactly who the man is, she nudges Blythe.

'Hey, wake up.' She says quietly as she pulls in once more.

'Huh? Are we home yet? What time is it?'

'No, we're nearly there. See that guy there?'

Blythe rubs the sleep from her eyes and turns her attention to whatever it is that Mary is pointing to.

'Oh God, it's Greg! What is he _doing_ out here?' pulling her coat closer around her, Blythe opens the passenger door and climbs out. 'GREGORY!'

House hears his mother's voice as if from nowhere and turns his attention up from his feet to the woman in front of him. Unaccustomed as he is to walking so far on unfamiliar territory, he stumbles when his foot meets a crack in the pavement and almost falls over.

It is at that point that Blythe sees her son in a new light. Rushing up to him and taking hold of his arm, she sees the briefest flash of a man who glares at the world expecting it to kick his butt every time he makes a move.

'Mom! What are you doing here?' surprised as he is, he shrugs off her helping hand as gently as he can.

'Never mind that son, what are _you_ doing out here? Are you alright?'

'You know how it goes Mom. Dad and I had a…had a…had a-' _pause, breath,_ '-discussion…it uh…'

'Okay, I get it. You don't have to say anymore. Get in the car, we'll go home, we'll fix it.'

House broods in the passenger seat all the way back to his parents' house while Mary blunders through her entire repertoire of small talk with his mother. His father had made him feel small, weak and exposed; a worthless, pathetic cripple who wasn't quite crippled enough. The same old vicious circle they were trapped in like wounded Russian bears was no different then it had been when he was young. Only the pretence of a subject had shifted.

House had been six years old the first time John had left for Vietnam. He was gone for a year and when he came back, he had started to spend a lot more time in the bar with his comrades. House had heard his parents arguing endlessly about stupid stuff like which washing-up liquid to use and how high to fill the tub.

After eighteen months strangled at home, John had been sent away again and this time he was gone more or less for two years.

The John House who came back was a changed man. He had no time for his eleven year old son and whatever House did seemed to annoy him. After a while, the cruelty inherent in all small boys would try deliberately to rile his father. House would leave his shoes in a pile at the foot of the stairs ready to be tripped over. He would put the smallest amounts of chilli powder in his father's coffee. He would try anything to get his father's attention be it for good or for bad.

A few years of being ignored found House in his teens and then his father's distance suited him just fine.

It was only then that people started talking about Agent Orange, PTSD and the effects of Vietnam on the soldiers that fought there. Despite his belief that he was honour-bound to serve his country whatever the personal cost, John started to come out of his shell then, like there was safety in the numbers admitting to failure.

House watched from a curious and emotional distance as his father tried to engage him in conversation. It was too late of course, he and his father were strangers tethered together by Blythe; protector and protected.

By the time Mary's heap of a car makes it back to the House house, Blythe is exhausted by the day's events. She thinks back over a day that had seen every possible emotion played out as though they had all been thrown back to the tumult of Greg's teens. She feels bone-tired and knows she still has to face her husband when she walks through the front door.

As she had done all that time ago, she knows she needs to run interference for Greg. She knows he will stay the night, try to sleep and then leave before sunrise. Just as surely, she knows John will be sitting at home feeling confused and wondering what he had said and where whatever it was had got out of hand.

Greg had always been much more sensitive to perceived criticism than he would have people believe.

She is stuck between a rock and a hard place only it doesn't take much for the rock to be thrown off his axis and the hard place had a gift when it comes to wobbling that unsteady rotation. She craves someone to even out the emotional responsibility. Neither of the men she loves know how to communicate the tiniest of feelings. They only seem to notice the big, ugly, hurtful ones.

Blythe summons up the courage to enter the house once she's sure Greg isn't going to punch anyone. She hugs Mary goodbye and whispers just weirdly enough for House's suspicion muscles to start twitching.

He knows somewhere that this whole visit has been tied up in the orbit of something larger than his leg and the stalemate between him and his father. He is pretty sure it is all connected to that summer of silence when he was twelve but that is his mother's problem. It's her own fine mess and he isn't about to get involved in clearing it up.

He waits while Blythe hangs up her coat, then they fall into rank as they walk into the living room.

John is sitting on the sofa with a hurt, innocent expression on his face and House can hardly bear it; old allegiances sworn and sure.

He stomps off to the guest room in his best impression of a stroppy teenager and even slams the door to make some sort of point lost on his father, and perhaps himself.

He sits down on the bed and reaches deep into his filthy jeans for the bottle of Vicodin. He shovels two into his mouth then lets himself fall flat back while he waits for the blissful absence he knows is coming.

It is only once he has heard the assurances of his mother mumbled to his father in the room below that his rage dials down.

In this room of flowery wallpaper and chintz curtains, House knows it is time to go home.

He knows he will leave it a couple of hours until his parents are asleep and then he will leave, quietly, through the shadows.

This all ends as it began.

No expectation met and none received.


End file.
